1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates to RF/microwave/millimeter mixers and baluns.
2. Description of Related Art
Broadband mixers may need to be made with lumped elements or other structures compatible with IC fabrication techniques and geometries.
Balanced mixers may provide better overall performance over unbalanced mixers, including better linearity, noise, and port to port isolation.
Baluns may be used in single balanced mixers and double balanced mixers to convert radio frequency (RF), local oscillator (LO) and intermediate frequency (IF) signals between balanced and unbalanced configurations. The baluns may also need to be integrated using standard IC foundry processes so that broadband integrated mixers can be produced.
Important performance parameters for a mixer may include conversion gain, linearity, noise, and operating bandwidth. Baluns may be used in integrated mixers and may have a significant impact on all of these performance parameters. Important performance parameters for an integrated balun may include operating frequency range, insertion loss, amplitude/phase balance, impedance matching/transformation and physical size.
Unfortunately, it may be very difficult to achieve a desired set of needed parameters with an integrated balun.